Unanswered questions: a review of Adler's thoughts (General)

by dhw, Wednesday, August 21, 2019, 11:43 (1919 days ago) @ David Turell

QUOTE: Man is a different "kind" of thing than the other creatures that inhabit our planet.

If we are different from other creatures, other creatures are also different from us and from each other! Or do you think an ant, a shark, an elephant and an eagle are not different “kinds” of thing? But I agree that our level of consciousness makes us special.

Now suddenly you switch from the subject of man’s difference to the subject of materialism versus dualism!

QUOTE: Next, Adler, using a traditional argument from Aquinas and Aristotle, argues that this ability must be immaterial due to the immaterial nature of the concept - a "class" or "universal" that cannot by definition be material and hence not merely an act of the physical brain.

Yes, yes, we’ve been through all the pros and cons of the argument umpteen times. Why are you raising it here?

DAVID: Can an uncontrolled process of evolution produce the immaterial consciousness of humans. Along with Adler, I think not.

All levels of consciousness are immaterial, as is thought itself, and the leading question is whether the source is material or not. For those of us who believe in evolution, there is a natural progression from lower to higher levels of thought, and even you argue that your God must have tinkered with existing brains to have produced our level (although you are a dualist). I would suggest the possibility that if God exists, he didn’t have to tinker – he enabled intelligent cells to do their own tinkering, which resulted in ever greater degrees of consciousness, culminating in ours.